Yvette Cooper

Yvette Cooper (20 March 1969-) was the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract, and Castleford from 1 May 1997, succeeding Geoff Lofthouse. She was married to Labour MP Ed Balls.

Biography
Yvette Cooper was born in Inverness, Scotland on 20 March 1969, the daughter of a trade union secretary. She worked as an economic policy researcher for the Labour Party in 1990 before working on Bill Clinton's Democratic presidentail campaign in Arkansas in 1992. In 1995, she became the chief economics correspondent for The Independent, and she went on to be elected to Parliament in 1997 as the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract, and Castleford. She served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health from 1999 to 2002, Minister of State for Housing and Planning from 2005 to 2008, Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2008 to 2009, and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2009 to 2010.